I didn't know what courage was until I met Harriet Tubman. And I'm telling you I studied hard something fierce 'cause I wanted to know the source of that courage. I asked her once and she said, "It ain't me. It couldn't be. I've got a guardian angel, that's what I have. They come when you think of others more'n yourself. They come like bees to honey."
~ from "Interlude: Harriet Tubman" in NAVIGATING THE TIDES OF CHANGE
"It doesn’t matter to most people that the wind sings in the trees or that a mountain shimmers in the sunlight. But you find life in all this, a life you can partake of."
I replied that no one understands nature: a tree bathed in sunlight, a weathered stone, an animal, a mountain, each has life, has a tale to tell, is a life, suffers, endures, experiences joy, dies -- but we don’t understand it.
As I approached the house, I heard the tune whistled of a little song coming from the upper window. I did not know anything yet, but I listened. The tune stirred my memory and some dormant recollections came to the fore. The music was banal but the whistling was wonderfully sweet, with soft and pleasing notes, unusually pure, as happy and as natural as the song of birds. I stood and listened, enchanted, and at the same time strangely moved without having any kind of accompanying thoughts.
